The campaign against WikiLeaks began with an effort to jam the website as the cables were being released. U.S. Internet companies Amazon.com and EveryDNS then severed their links with WikiLeaks in quick succession, forcing it to jump to new servers and adopt a new primary Web address — wikileaks.ch — in Switzerland.

Separately, Assange surrendered to London police Tuesday to face a Swedish arrest warrant.

Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, has been accused by two women in Sweden. He faces rape and sexual molestation allegations in one case and sexual molestation and unlawful coercion in the other. Assange denies the allegations.

Assange told a London court on Tuesday he intends to fight his extradition to Sweden on sex crime allegations, setting up what could be a drawn-out legal battle.

Assange and his lawyers say the accusations stem from a "dispute over consensual but unprotected sex," and have said the case has taken on political overtones.

Beginning in July, WikiLeaks angered the U.S. government by releasing tens of thousands of secret U.S. military documents on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. That was followed last week by the ongoing release of what WikiLeaks says will eventually be a quarter-million cables from U.S. diplomatic posts around the world. The group provided those documents to five major newspapers, which have been working with WikiLeaks to edit the cables for publication.

In the past week, WikiLeaks has seen its bank accounts canceled and its websites attacked. The U.S. government has launched a criminal investigation, saying the group has jeopardized U.S. national security and diplomatic efforts around the world.

WikiLeaks has also seen an online army of supporters come to its aid, sending donations, fighting off computer attacks and setting up over 500 mirror sites around the world to make sure that the secret documents are published regardless of what happens to Assange.

A spokesman for WikiLeaks called Assange's arrest an attack on media freedom and said it won't prevent the organization from releasing more secret documents.

"This will not change our operation," Kristinn Hrafnsson said.

But Hrafnsson also said the group had no plans at the moment to release the key to a heavily encrypted version of some of its most important documents — an "insurance" file that has been distributed to supporters in case of an emergency. Hrafnsson said that will only come into play if "grave matters" involving WikiLeaks staff occur — but did not elaborate on what those would be.

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